The National Road Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP) offers a collaborative network for Australian organisations to build and implement effective road safety strategies in the workplace.

The program offers organisations the resources to improve road safety that best fit their individual operations and, at the same time, improve business productivity through less time and money lost through safety incidents.

The program is not a prescriptive approach but aims to complement existing safety legislation by providing access to a ‘knowledge bank’ from a diverse network of organisations to given them the resources to implement their own initiatives. The tools will help make the business case for organisations shifting their safety focus from 'having' to safety to secure a contract to 'wanting' to because it is simply good business.

Only Counting Deaths Makes us Complacent

Australasian College of Road Safety President, Mr Lauchlan McIntosh AM, said today that “Australia is well behind it’s own targets to reduce deaths and injuries from road crashes.”

This comment comes in response to the recent statement by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Michael McCormack, on the number of deaths on our roads during 2018.

“The focus on fatalities is simply the tip of the iceberg,” said Mr McIntosh.

“While we can take a moment to reflect that the 2018 number of deaths brings us back to 2015 levels, we must not forget the road toll also includes the 100+ who are seriously injured each day – 37,000 each year.”

Mr McIntosh said that ACRS Fellow, Professor Narelle Haworth from the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q), put it succinctly when she said in 2017:

“Focussing on the road toll is misguided. It shapes the views of both policymakers and the public, and leads to a distorted picture of what needs to be done to improve road safety.”

Professor Haworth said drink driving, speeding, not wearing seat belts and fatigue were much more common in fatal crashes than in serious injury crashes.

“Similarly about 50 per cent of fatal crashes occur in 100km/h speed zones while serious injuries are more likely to occur in speed zones of 60km/h or less.” she said.

“Motorcyclists, bicycle riders and pedestrians make up the greatest proportion of people admitted to hospital than those killed.”

‘Basing our road safety response on what we see in fatalities will result in misdirected perceptions and policies.”

Mr McIntosh said: “The 2018 Ministerial Inquiry into our road safety strategy set out the real scale of work required on the path ‘Towards Zero’, and emphasised the lack of urgency and resources currently being allocated to reduce this unnecessary burden.”

“The Deputy Prime Minister is right that we cannot be complacent, but the action on those Inquiry recommendations is looking like the same dead hand of action to past Inquiries.”

“Ignoring the 100+ serious injuries per day, every day, just encourages complacency. We know what to do, let’s see some real commitment from all parties to reduce this burden.”